On A Cold Winter's Night
by etraytin
Summary: While Josh endures the crucible of his Christmas Eve session with Stanley Keyworth, Sam and Donna worry about him from afar. Christmas plans are a small price to pay for the chance to help a friend start putting his life back together.


Author's Note: Hey everybody, have some more Christmas fic! Tis the season! This particular piece is a companion story to the second season episode Noel, and I think it works just fine as a canon-compliant stand-alone story. Its genesis, however, is a brief scene described in Chapter Six of Such A Winter's Day. Ever since I wrote that sketch, I've wanted to explore it in more detail, so here it is. I hope that you enjoy!

…...

The waiting was driving her crazy. Donna could get through almost anything if she had something to do, some goal to concentrate on, even just some busywork to distract her. But she'd come in at seven this morning, unable to sleep anyway, and had finished her entire pile of pending work before the start of the business day. Josh's meeting hadn't started till almost noon, but he'd spent the morning holed up with the briefing notes she'd put together for him on Stanley Keyworth and ATVA. He was wearing a huge white bandage on his hand that he didn't want to talk about, except to say that he'd broken a glass. He was a lousy liar, especially when he didn't care if she believe him or not. She'd known he hadn't wanted to be seen that day, hadn't wanted to watch his colleagues going in one at a time to talk about him and his problems with a stranger who held his career in dispassionate analytical hands.

Donna understood that; it had been excruciating enough to go in herself and talk about Josh, even though Stanley had been very gentle and understanding with her. She passed the rest of the morning doing her extra filing, researching ahead for things that Josh might need information on after the holidays (please let him still need information after the holidays), and chasing away anybody who wanted to come in and chat with Josh, which was pretty much the entire senior staff except Leo. Finally Stanley was ready for Josh, and all Donna could do was serve coffee and then go back to her desk and wait.

By two o'clock, she had finished all of her backed-up filing. By four o'clock, she'd briefed out and done index cards for two new pending bills that wouldn't even go to committee till the new year. By five o'clock she'd had a stilted conversation with her mother about why she'd canceled her Christmas plans (way too much work to do, wasn't she still here at the office on Christmas Eve, after all?) and by six she was organizing Josh's desk to within an inch of its life. As she arranged all the pencils and pens in his drawer to point the same way, she noticed the smear of dried blood on the edge of the desk where he'd obviously banged his injured hand against the corner somehow. She didn't touch that, though she stared at it for a really long time. It was probably a biohazard, she reasoned, she wouldn't even know what to do about something like that in the office. Josh should've gotten a new bandage on it if he was bleeding like that, and he could have asked her but he didn't, and he could've told her what he'd done to his hand but he'd lied instead and she didn't know why but she was afraid to know so she was just going to leave that spot of blood alone and leave the office alone for a little while and do something else.

She wound up in Sam's office, sitting in one of his visitor chairs with her legs drawn up and her arms around her knees. Sam wasn't even there, but his office wasn't locked, suggesting he probably wasn't gone for the night. Toby and CJ were already gone, both somewhat reluctantly, but people would've asked questions if the whole senior staff had been hanging around aimlessly on Christmas Eve. Even in this workaholic White House that would've been remarkable. Leo was still here, she knew, and a skeleton crew of staffers too low-ranked to get the night off, but besides that the place was a ghost town.

Sam walked into his office after a few minutes, not looking particularly surprised to see her. "I just went by your desk," he remarked. "I figured if you weren't there, you might be here. Leo says he thinks at least another hour. You want to go down to the mess?"

Donna shook her head. "Not hungry. Can we go to the Mural Room? I want to look at the tree." Sam nodded, walking beside her silently through deserted halls. The Christmas lights were still on in the Mural Room, making it look like a winter fantasia instead of the stuffy old museum piece it resembled most of the year. She sat down on the couch in front of the tree, drawing up her legs again and staring at the lights until they became blurry little blobs of white. "Do you think this is going to help him?" she asked quietly.

He sat down next to her, crossing one leg over the other and loosening his tie. "I don't know," he admitted. "I really hope so. This guy's supposed to be the best. I didn't really want to talk to him, but he sure got everything he wanted from me." Donna thought about asking what Stanley had asked, but she didn't want to be asked in return, so she remained silent. They both stared into the lights for a minute. "I know this has been especially hard on you," he finally said. "Are you okay?"

"I'm really scared," she murmured, only glancing in his direction. "I don't know what's going to happen if this doesn't work. I've been trying so hard, but nothing is helping anymore." She sniffled, just a little. "I can't watch him all night and day, not when he has to go into meetings or staff the president, not when he's by himself at night." She turned to face him, trying to blink back the tears that were suddenly welling up. "He hurt himself and he's lying about how it happened." Her voice was barely a whisper. "I told Stanley I thought he might have done it on purpose."

"God..." Sam reached out and put his arm around her, pulling her into a hug. "I don't want to think you're right, but with the way he's been..." Donna rested her head against his shoulder and nodded silently. "You had to tell Stanley what you thought," Sam reassured her. "It's the only way Josh is going to get the help he needs."

"If Stanley doesn't think Josh is stable, he'll lose his job," Donna pointed out. "And that'll be my fault."

"If Josh is really that unstable," Sam replied quietly, "you're probably saving his life. But I don't think it's going to turn out that way. Josh is strong, and this guy's the best in the business, and we're all going to be right there to help him with anything he needs. And to help you," he added. "You know you can always call, right?"

Donna nodded. That was the truth; while she might have hesitated to call CJ or Toby even though she counted them as friends, she knew she could call Sam. After Rosslyn and everything they'd gone through with Josh then, they could always call each other. She took a long breath, let it out in a sigh. "You should probably go home," she told him.

He looked at her in surprise; she could feel the muscles in his shoulders and neck move. "I thought I should wait till Josh gets out, see how he's doing."

"Leo's going to make him let me take him to the hospital for his hand," Donna said. "If we're both there, he might think we're ganging up on him. If it's just me, I can pass it off as being his trusty assistant and following him around."

Sam smiled wryly. "No assistant in the world works these hours for that money."

She raised her head and smiled back. "Yeah, but whatever gets him to the doctor, right? I'll call you later and let you know how things went. He'll probably need company tomorrow." Sam had canceled his Christmas as well, exchanging a holiday in the Hamptons for the cold comfort of DC in December. CJ had postponed her trip home to the point where she wouldn't arrive till halfway through Christmas Day, and Toby... well, she had no idea if Toby'd had plans at all, since it wasn't even his holiday, but she did know he'd be available if Josh needed him. Donna hoped that someday Josh would be healthy enough again to appreciate how many people cared that much about him.

"All right," Sam agreed. Donna pulled away to let him stand up, but he hesitated. "You're not going to take him to GW, are you?"

She shook her head. "Georgetown's usually quieter, and, you know, not the same associations. But he has to get it looked at, and he wouldn't see the staff doctor this morning. It's the ER or nothing."

"Yeah." He did stand up then, looking at the tree once more, then back to her. "Good luck. I'll talk to you later." He looked as though he wanted to say more, but just smiled a little and headed out. Donna waited a few more minutes and then went too, ghosting around the outskirts of the lobby until Josh was finally, finally finished.

Whatever had happened in therapy, whatever Stanley had said, something had worked. Josh looked as wrung out as if he'd gone twelve rounds with the Appropriations Committee with no bargaining chips in his pocket, but there was life in his eyes again, and something that looked like the beginning of hope. Donna waited until he was done talking to Leo, then swept in with his coat, hiding her enormous relief under a businesslike veneer. Josh followed her out with surprising meekness and minimal complaint, pausing only to stare at a group of carolers with an expression that said he was looking right through them at something else. She pulled him away, one hand on his arm, careful not to brush against his injured hand as they walked.

They were almost to the cab stand before he spoke again. "Glass usually works its own way out of wounds if you don't mess with it."

"No it doesn't," she replied.

"I'm pretty sure it does. I saw it on one of those late-night documentaries," he insisted. It was the first time he'd engaged with her on anything in days.

She hid her smile. "Are you sure it wasn't an infomercial? Because that's definitely not what happens."

"Sure," he agreed sarcastically, "because there are a lot of infomercials on the behavior of glass in wounds."

"Infomercial people are very clumsy," Donna reminded him. "You never know what they could do to themselves."

"I'm not clumsy," Josh insisted. "I-" A cab pulled up to collect them, and he fell silent. Donna was okay with that, part of her didn't even want to know. They sat on opposite sides of the back of the cab, a foot or more of space between them, but she could still feel the nervous energy seeping off him. He relaxed fractionally when she sent them to Georgetown and not GW, but he was still wound up tight. Still better, she reminded herself. Still better than angry, sullen defeat, or the blank unwillingness to deal with her or anything else.

The emergency room at Georgetown was quiet, as she'd hoped, and Josh didn't say anything when she went back to the exam area with him. They'd done this enough times before when he was recovering, Donna keeping notes on his treatment as assiduously as she tracked the progress of any bill through Congress. He closed his eyes and flinched when the doctor put a shot of lidocaine into his injured hand; Donna took the other one and rubbed it sympathetically with her thumb. He closed his fingers around hers and held on while the doctor dug out a few little shards of glass and cleaned the wound more thoroughly. It looked much better afterwards, at least, and a gauze pad with some tape replaced the extremely comprehensive looks-like-you-cut-your-hand-off job Josh had done himself. Somehow, Donna found herself still holding his hand as they checked out and left the building.

"I didn't cut my hand on a glass," he told her quietly, looking straight out into the night while they waited at another cab stand. "I broke the window in my living room. Put my hand through it. I don't think- I didn't even feel it until afterwards." She stared at him with wide eyes, trying to formulate a response. He noticed the silence and looked over, giving her a rueful half-smirk. "So much for that damage deposit."

"Did your super fix it?" Donna asked, defaulting to the practical while the rest was still sorting itself out.

"He tacked some plastic up over the window," Josh told her with a half-shrug. "Can't do anything till after the holiday, apparently."

"Your place must be an icebox." She squeezed his fingers lightly as she shivered in the wind. "You can't go back there tonight. You can stay at my place."

She expected him to argue, but he just shrugged. "I take no responsibility for the mental health of your roommate's cats."

"I think they'll be all right." In truth, the cats were in New Jersey with Donna's roommate for Christmas, but she used them to argue Josh into taking her bed anyway, pointing out that he wouldn't get any sleep if he was worried about feline incursions all night. It was rare for Josh to be too tired to argue, but he seemed to have hit the threshold. Once he was in bed and the door was closed, Donna slumped down on the couch and called Sam. He answered on the first ring. "Josh broke a window in his living room," she informed him softly.

Sam cursed, equally quietly. "On purpose?"

"I don't know," she admitted, "but he's still got a job. He looks... he looks better. He can't be in his place with a broken window and whatever glass might still be laying around. I've got him here at my place tonight, but can you meet us tomorrow morning at his place with a sheet of plywood and some nails?"

Getting any home improvement supplies on Christmas Day was bound to be a hassle, but Sam didn't so much as hesitate. "I'll even bring bagels. Are you okay?" he asked again.

"Yeah," she said on the edge of a sigh, realizing it was true. "I'm getting there. Are you?"

"Getting there," he agreed with a soft laugh. "See you tomorrow." Donna's couch wasn't the most comfortable place in the world, but she slept well, knowing that for once, Josh was asleep and somewhere she could keep an eye on him.

Josh got up before Donna the next morning, giving her a startle when she woke up and found him sitting in the chair across from her couch, looking at her over the edge of a magazine. He looked better, she decided, not great, but more like himself. He proved that by immediately starting in on her. "There are no cats here."

She yawned. "How do you know?"

"Because it's past seven now and there's been no yowling chorus of monsters clamoring for breakfast. I remember that part quite clearly from last time I was here."

Donna grinned at him, not yet bothering to sit up. "That was funny. You were really hung over."

"That's not at all the way I remember it," he countered stuffily, "but you're dodging the point."

"There was a point?"

"I was under the clear impression that if I slept on your sofa, I was going to be jumped on by cats, which is patently not the case, since unless I miss my guess, your cats and your roommate are somewhere in Hoboken right now."

"Newark."

"Doesn't matter. You, Donnatella Moss, got me into your bed under false pretenses last night!" Josh scolded.

Donna raised both eyebrows at him. "Well, when you put it that way it just sounds wrong," she commented. "I'd run that phrasing past CJ before you issue the press release." She sat up with every evidence of unconcern, though inside she was almost ready to cry with relief. "You should get dressed, we're meeting Sam at your place this morning."

"We are?" Josh asked, momentarily distracted from glaring at her for the comment about CJ.

"Yup. We're going to fix it up so you can stay there again before I give myself permanent back problems or have to get another cat." She rose and went to the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. "Consider it your Christmas present."

That stopped Josh in his tracks. "It's Christmas," he remembered suddenly, running his hands though his hair. "Like, today. Christmas Day. You were going to Wisconsin. And Sam was going... somewhere boring to talk about sailing."

She shrugged. "Well, now we're not. And I'm hoping you know some good delivery places that are open on Christmas because I have nothing in my fridge."

He was still staring at her, an odd look on his face. "I didn't get you anything. I forgot."

Donna left the kitchen and crossed the room to him. "It's okay, really. It's not like I really wanted those skis or anything..." When he finally cracked a little smile, she decided it was okay to hug him. "There's more important things than presents," she murmured to him. "I'm just glad you're here."

He hugged her back, pressing his chin against her shoulder, then his face. She could feel the deep breath he took. "I am too," he admitted. "I'm betting I'm on the hook for something spectacular for Secretary's Day."

"Better believe it." She let go, ignoring the part of her that really didn't want to, and finished making the coffee. Fully dressed and with travel mugs in hand, they got into Donna's slightly-elderly car (over Josh's considerable protests) and headed to Josh's apartment. Sam was already there somehow, with not only a large sheet of plywood and some tools, but a full box of fresh bagels as well. "You're a miracle worker," she told him admiringly, passing over a third travel mug.

"I just made a couple phone calls," Sam demurred modestly. "I would've tried to get a glazier in, but that's really the complex manager's job."

"You bring him coffee?" Josh asked with some outrage, seeing the exchange. "He's not even your boss!" Sam did a quick double-take, then smiled at Donna.

Donna smiled back before affixing Josh with her haughtiest look. "I give Sam coffee because he's not totally insufferable about it, unlike some people. Now do you want a bagel or not?"

"You only have those bagels because of my religion," Josh pointed out, apropos of nothing. But he grabbed a bagel. It took several hours to set the room to rights again, with Donna sweeping the carpet for large pieces of glass while Sam followed up with the vacuum for any small fragments. Getting the board into place was much more of a production than Donna had thought, requiring all three of them to put the unwieldy thing in place so that Sam could pound the nails in while Donna shouted helpful instructions and Josh critiqued the placement and levelness of the entire project while trying to brace it with his back and his one good hand. They very nearly broke the top pane as well, but eventually got enough nails into the windowframe to hold it in place.

The resulting patch was not exactly a feast for the eyes, but it did block the wind from coming in. When Donna went one step further and tacked a sheet over the board, then drew the curtain sheers over that, it was possible to pretend for the moment that nothing had ever broken. As they cleaned up supplies and changed the vacuum bag, Josh explained haltingly about his diagnosis, in half-sentences and meaningful silences and soft muttered phrases. Donna worked hard to control her reaction to the news, and she knew Sam was doing the same thing. Post-traumatic stress disorder wasn't any real surprise, not after all the research she'd done and knowing what he'd gone through, but it was painful to hear anyway.

Sam the speechmaker was the one who managed to come up with the words. "It's a diagnosis," he said, "but it's not who you are, or who you'll be. And we're right here for you, whatever you need." Donna nodded, and then Josh nodded, and there was nothing more that could or should be said right then.

They ordered Chinese food for lunch (Josh did indeed know a place) and Sam and Donna settled in for the afternoon. She stepped out for a little while to wait for the food and update CJ, who would call Toby, and tell them that things were okay right now. When she got back inside, she saw Josh and Sam hugging and knew they'd talked as well, probably the same conversation she'd had with Josh that morning. The three of them settled down on the couch with their food, Sam and Donna on either side of Josh, and flipped on the television. "Hey, It's A Wonderful Life," Sam said, pleased. "I love this one."

"Ugh, cliched," Josh complained, forking up a bite of his noodles.

"It's adorable," Donna protested, but changed the channel anyway. "Oh, here's Scrooged, but it's over," she observed with disappointment. Josh, she couldn't help but notice, flinched at the sudden music over the television's ample speakers. She changed the channel before he could comment. "A Christmas Carol?"

"Do we have to watch Christmas movies?" Josh whined. "It's not like you haven't seen them all before." In the end, they found a Marx Brothers marathon on one of the movie channels that Josh subscribed to and never watched, and though Donna complained a bit for form, she'd have happily sat through much worse just to see Josh smiling and heckling again. He wasn't better, she knew, and things were still going to be rough, but she had hope again. She could get by on that for a long time.

"So," Josh finally said, when the food was mostly gone and Donna was picking through the ruins of their cracked-open fortune cookies, "I guess I should thank both of you for canceling your Christmases and showing up here today, even if neither of you are going to admit you did it."

"On the contrary!" Sam protested with a grin, waving his paper cup of soda in Josh's direction. "We should be thanking you! I've never gotten to attend a Jewish Christmas before, but I feel like I've really gotten the immersive experience now."

"It's everything I hoped it would be," Donna agreed, "and not a single person asked me when I'm going to quit my job and get married, so it's a big improvement on whatever plans I'm not admitting to having had in the first place."

Josh smirked and shook his head. "You're both nuts," he declared, "but you're welcome to stick around. If you're really lucky, maybe later we'll complete the ritual and go out to a movie theater." He couldn't come out and say he wanted them to stay longer, but Donna heard it anyway.

She linked an arm comfortably through his and ignored how warm the contact made her feel. "I don't know how anybody could turn down an offer like that," she replied. Sam agreed, propping his feet up on the coffee table and preparing to stay awhile. Donna could feel the subtle moment when Josh relaxed, letting out a breath and deciding things were okay for now. "And you know," she added cheerfully, "I hear the day after Christmas is when people give gifts to the folks who work for them. It's not too late for those skis." When Josh laughed, she settled in and relaxed too, ready to enjoy her Christmas.


End file.
